The Sanya Phoenix International Airport, located in the resort city of Sanya in south China's tropical island province of Hainan, commenced the trial operation of its newly built Terminal 3 (T3) on Sunday, marking a major expansion of the tourism hub's capacity ahead of the 2026 Spring Festival travel rush.
With the addition of T3, the airport's annual passenger throughput is projected to reach 30 million trips.
The terminal will fully assume the function of handling domestic flights, featuring 40 check-in counters, 23 security screening lanes, and seven fixed boarding bridges.
Connected to Terminals 1 and 2 via enclosed corridors, it is intended to deliver a seamless travel experience for passengers.
During the 2026 Spring Festival travel season, spanning from February 2 to March 13, the Sanya Phoenix International Airport is expected to handle about 18,600 flights and 3.49 million passenger trips.
By leveraging T3's added capacity, the airport aims to alleviate operational pressure on other terminals and improve service efficiency during the peak travel period.
"The airport will work to enhance its overall operational capacity and turnover efficiency, strengthen end-to-end flight management, and focus efforts on increasing the rate of flights docking at bridges and the on-time rate, to keep improving travel experience for passengers," said Li Xiaohuan, assistant to the president of the Sanya Phoenix International Airport.
South China's Sanya Phoenix International Airport launches trial operation of new terminal
South China's Sanya Phoenix International Airport launches trial operation of new terminal
Economic cooperation between China and Uruguay can be enhanced by taking advantage of complementary strengths the countries share in many fields, according to Gaston Scayola, president of the Uruguayan National Meat Institute.
Scayola was speaking with the China Global Television Network (CGTN) on Sunday as President of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay Yamandu Orsi arrived to start his seven-day state visit to China.
China and Uruguay have built a strong agricultural trade relationship, with beef and other meat products at its core. By the end of November last year, Uruguay's beef exports to China exceeded 860 million U.S. dollars, a 14 percent year-on-year increase.
Scayola predicted that his country will increase beef exports thanks to efficient quarantine procedures from China.
"I think that we are complementary countries. Exports are very important for our economy. The meat chain is 10 percent of our economic, of our labor. I can see that Uruguay will be increasing about the production of meat, will be more efficient every time, hopefully with Chinese corporations and Chinese technology. And at the same time, China every year is increasing their consumption. These improvements in quarantine procedures have helped a lot our possibilities of doing business here. So, we will continue offering the best we produce to Chinese market. At the same time, we will be sharing with China our way of production, our genetic (data), our way of sustainable production. So, we have a great future together," he said.
China has remained Uruguay's largest trading partner for more than a decade and also serves as the biggest market for Uruguayan commodities.
Faced with growing uncertainties in the world, Scayola emphasized that mutual trust is essential for doing business between the two sides and called for stronger communication with China to expand business opportunities.
"China and Uruguay can work together to do much better (for) our world. It's very important to be prepared for our new world, to have the kind of friendship that we have, the possibility of being present and visit China very often. For me, to do business, we need to be reliable, be confident. So, the only way is being present in the market, to know the person with whom we are doing business. At the same time, we need strong communication. We need to share information this for business. We have to share communication between authorities," the institute president said.
Uruguay sees long-term complementarity with China in beef trade: insider
